Originally Posted by
EGPO
With 7831ft x145 that's big enough for the likes of Ryanair, and Aerlingus to operate .
Question is,
Is there demand for large aircraft down there ?.
I had wondered about ' incoming ' EU Tourist flights, one of the English south coast Airports sees a few inbound German flights .
So could this be a ' Tourist Airport'?.
And is the Terminal getting upgraded to match such a good sized Runway ? .
EGPO,
The level of demand will not get the airport to significant enough demand to deliver a viable level of pax. An airport needs in excess of 1million pax a year, given an appropriate level of revenue from car parks and retail too. Any airports with less than this make up the shortfall from government subsidies or loose money.
Shane Ross said on the radio yesterday that the airport repay the government in 4 years ... but how I earth will they do this?
The airport will probably attract Europe's biggest low cost airline, and with a, fair wind I think they could get a 2 daily London route, Luton/Stansted, maybe twice weekly to MAN and BHX and a handful of seasonal sun routes, which would probably be AGP, FAO, ACE, ALC of the like. With said airline in place the likelihood of other airlines coming in are low.
They certainly could draw traffic from the the area between Waterford and Dublin, those who don't want M50 and a congested airport experience, but certainly not enough to deliver the necessary numbers...
EI-BUD.